“Ay, and better.  But I promise you Richard and I are not such fools as to think she will marry his Grace.  We must have the little coxcomb’s letter.”

“Well, have it you must, I suppose,” returns the doctor.  And with that he draws it from his pocket, where he has it buttoned in.  Then he took a pinch of Holland and began.

The first two pages had to deal with Miss Dorothy’s triumph, to which her father made full justice.  Mr. Manners world have the doctor (and all the province) to know that peers of the realm, soldiers, and statesmen were at her feet.  Orders were as plentiful in his drawing-room as the candles.  And he had taken a house in Arlington Street, where Horry Walpole lived when not at Strawberry, and their entrance was crowded night and day with the footmen and chairmen of the grand monde.  Lord Comyn broke in more than once upon the reading, crying,—­“Hear, hear!” and,—­“My word, Mr. Manners has not perjured himself thus far.  He has not done her justice by half.”  And I smiled at the thought that I had aspired to such a beauty!

“‘Entre noes, mon cher Courtenay,’ Mr. Manners writes, ’entre noes, our Dorothy hath had many offers of great advantage since she hath been here.  And but yesterday comes a chariot with a ducal coronet to our door.  His Grace of Chartersea, if you please, to request a private talk with me.  And I rode with him straightway to his house in Hanover Square.’”

“’Egad!  And would gladly have ridden straightway to Newgate, in a ducal chariot!” cried his Lordship, in a fit of laughter.

“‘I rode to Hanover Square,’ the doctor continued, ’where we discussed the matter over a bottle.  His Grace’s generosity was such that I could not but cry out at it, for he left me to name any settlement I pleased.  He must have Dorothy at any price, said he.  And I give you my honour, mon cher Courtenay, that I lost no time in getting back to Arlington Street, and called Dorothy down to tell her.’”

“Now may I be flayed,” said Comyn, “if ever there was such another ass!”

The doctor took more snuff and fell a-laughing.

“But hark to this,” said he, “here’s the cream of it all: 

“You will scarce believe me when I say that the baggage was near beside herself with anger at what I had to tell her.  ’Marry that misshapen duke!’ cries she, ‘I would quicker marry Doctor Johnson!’ And truly, I begin to fear she hath formed an affection for some like, foul-linened beggar.  That his Grace is misshapen I cannot deny; but I tried reason upon her.  ’Think of the coronet, my dear, and of the ancient name to which it belongs.’  She only stamps her foot and cries out: 

“’Coronet fiddlesticks!  And are you not content with the name you bear, sir?” ‘Our name is good as any in the three kingdoms,’ said I, with truth.  ’Then you would have me, for the sake of the coronet, joined to a wretch who is steeped in debauchery.  Yes, debauchery, sir!  You might then talk, forsooth, to the macaronies of Maryland, of your daughter the Duchess.’”